Harvesting Seattle: Blackberry peach pepper pie

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time in Seattle. Despite the smoky air, I made it a point to get outdoors and do some urban foraging. Blackberry brambles are abundant around the city. My best friend, her boyfriend, my sister and I headed out to Discovery Park and found several briars laden with sweet blackberries.

This wasn’t my first blackberry rodeo. Although it was a hot day I made sure to wear pants, shoes and socks. There’s good reason Sleeping Beauty was surrounded by a thick wall of brambles — these bushes are brutal! My friend Matt didn’t heed my pants advice.

We picked a quart of berries in about half an hour. I got a few unbelievably ripe, juicy peaches at Pike’s Market and we knew that pie was on the horizon.

I’m not a baker and I’ve probably made one pie in my life, but I was inspired by the blueberry pie at South Restaurant + Coffeehouse. I tasted it the other day and noticed a subtle, unusual ingredient: pink peppercorns. I don’t know if the pepper was in the crust or the filling, but I found a pretty cool recipe from the L.A. Times that incorporated blackberries, nectarines and pepper. I wanted to try it.

A big thanks to my best friend Jess for her pie lattice expertise because this pie was a winner inside and out!

We used 3 cups of blackberries and two cups of peeled, sliced peaches. We used honey instead of corn syrup. The ground pepper was incorporated into the crust and gives the pie a bit of zing.

After placing the bottom crust in the pan, we set a circle of parchment paper on the crust and used some dry beans as pie weights. Then we baked the bottom crust for about 15 minutes in the preheated oven, let it cool for about five minutes and added the filling.

We brushed the lattice with milk and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top.

Welcome to Alaska Knit Nat! I have always had a passion for making useful things, whether they are knit, crocheted, sewn or randomly glued and assembled. I started Alaska Knit Nat in 2010 as a means to keep track of all the stuff I make. I live in Anchorage, Alaska where the winters are long and cold. I’m not much of an outdoorsy person, so I enjoy passing the time cooking, creating and thrift store shopping.